Posted by Dr. Bob on June 15, 2002, at 10:30:34
In reply to Replace mental health profession with Neurology, posted by LostBoyinNC1 on June 14, 2002, at 21:47:12
[Posted by LostBoyinNC1 on June 15, 2002, at 10:07:01
In reply to http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020609/msgs/109921.html]
> > I completely agree with you and the article as presented. I have been DXed Major Depression/Recurrent - Bipolar II - back to Major Depression; who cares none of the treatments work anyhow. This should come as no surprize because there are no emperical tests in psychiatry, its all anecdotal guess work. The excuse offered by psychiatrists - "well, the brain is a very complex organ" - not really good enough for those of us suffering with the illness is it?
> >
>
> Psychiatrists have a lot of excuses. Tons of them. It all comes back to the simple basic fact most psychiatrists are not very interested in the Neuro type approach to major mental illnesses. Its too complicated for most of them. Only a NEUROLOGIST could handle it academically.
>
> > I think the part I resent the most pertains to the importance placed on the supposed psycho-social component - "dealing with issues", "working on relationships", "getting in touch with our feelings" - POOP!!. I am too old to be sitting in the corner sucking my thumb and hugging my teddy bear. It would be great if psychiatry amounted to something more than a roll of the dice.
>
> Psychiatry is currently set up mostly to handle persons who have milder problems...dysthymia, situational depression, etc. Problems of living its been described as. Psychiatry is not set up well to handle severe forms of mental illness...and arguably never will be because of the sort of person attracted to psychiatry and the mental health field in general.
>
> >
> > Question? Do you have any idea how to get in contact with a neurologist willing to deal with major depression?
>
> No I dont. I do know that currently Neurologists DO NOT treat mental illness. They do treat some of the side effects from some of the drugs, such as anti-psychotic induced movement disorders. There are a handful of Neurologists whose specialty is "Behavioral Neurology" who claim to treat mental illness. Even there, I dont like that name "behavior." These are full blown diseases we have not behaviors.
>
> That is part of the problem which is going to have to change in the future. How are we going to get new Neurologists in training trained to diagnose and treat major mental illness? I believe in the past this would have been an impossible sales job. However now, it might have become easier with the advent of functional neuroimaging. With functional neuroimaging, you can literally see the parts of your brain that are not working correctly, contributing to the mental illness. Neurologists would like this approach to diagnosing mental illness and Neurologists already control the neuroimaging labs as it is. So in the future, as functional neuroimaging improves and proliferates it might become much easier to sell the idea of Neurology taking over severe mental illness.
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> As I said before, I want the diagnosis and treatment of the severe forms of mental illness just totally, completely REMOVED from the so called "mental health" profession.
>
> Thats my personal slant on it.
>
>
> LostBoyinNC
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:25346
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020531/msgs/25362.html